


The Defeat of Evil

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Agni Kai Surprise, I feel like this is the Avatar version, be prepared for it to not be the person you expect when you turn around, just every time an Agni Kai is declared, you know the Law of Surprise from Witcher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:22:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: It was not Zuko's honour that needed to be defended that day in the Agni Kai chamber, just as it was not that General's honour that had been questioned in the war room, either.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 163





	The Defeat of Evil

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't prepared to be sucked into writing Avatar fanfic like this, but apparently that is my fandom now? So...
> 
> I tried to make this one longer but it just wasn't happening... might write more later...
> 
> Chapter title is a reference to the quote 'the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing' that no one actually knows who said first...

Iroh knows the minute Zuko speaks out of turn in the meeting who his nephew will be facing. Iroh knows and in that moment, he knows what he must do. What he should have done when he returned from his Spirit Journey to find his father dead, his sister-in-law missing, and his _little_ brother on the throne.

* * *

He breathes in, rising and turning, Agni’s Shawl falling from his shoulders as he takes in the startled look in his brother’s eyes. He can’t help the smirk that forms on his lips.

“Hello, brother.” He greets, his smirk growing when Ozai growls at him and immediately launches into the aggressive forms their grandfather so favoured. Iroh bats his brother’s flames away like they are nothing. Ozai has apparently learned little in the years since Iroh taught him firebending.

Iroh considers the man before him, half-mad with anger, and he compares him to the child who toddled about after Iroh, always keen to be following his big brother around, getting into everything that his big brother was doing. He thinks of the boy Ozai was, ten years his junior and he wonders when he stopped caring. Wonders when he stopped paying attention. Wonders just when his baby brother slipped into madness and rage and where Iroh was at the time. Wonders whether he was even in the Fire Nation at the time, or whether he was already out spreading the Fire Nation’s ‘glory’ to the rest of the world.

_It doesn’t matter now._ He tells himself, as he circles his brother, never attacking, only blocking, only taunting until he sees the moment his brother makes a mistake that he will never recover from.

He breathes in deeply and moves through a motion he’s practiced in private but has never used yet. There is only one safe direction in this chamber, he hadn’t bothered looking into the stands to know where innocents were, because even though part of him thought this is the way this fight would go, he’d _hoped_ differently. So, his only option is to return to sender.

_In. Down. Up. Out._

Someone screams in shock, but he knows it isn’t him. There’s an eerie silence, before the sound of a body hitting the ground. He breathes in deeply and lets it out as he looks at the body before him. He bows low, then turns on his heel and leaves the chamber, trying desperately to no longer compare the little boy that used to excitedly trail around after him, to the man crumpled behind him.

It doesn’t work, even though he knows he lost that little boy a long, long time ago.

“I was supposed to protect you. But who was going to protect Zuko from you?” he asks the ghost of the boy he once affectionally deemed his little shadow. The ghost boy says nothing and is gone within the blink of an eye, just like the man he grew up to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Iroh is the one who vouched for Zuko and let him into the chamber, when Zuko spoke out, it wasn't his honour on the line, it was Iroh's...


End file.
